Two new pieces of short fiction for you now: a drabble – Haircut 100 by Alan Garth – and First Snow by Mike Justman. They may be short but they are both intriguing – and amusing, the latter albeit in rather a dark way.

When not shooing swans off the lawn, UK-based Alan Garth writes SFF and has published in outlets including AE, 5 Minute Fiction, Stupefying Stories and Perihelion. Mike Justman is a writer, editor, and filmmaker who lives in Chicago. He posts photos of his pulp science fiction collection at @itcamefrombeyondpulp


Haircut 100
by Alan Garth

The best dressed chimpanzee Harry had ever seen strutted into his barber shop. Designer suit, crisp shirt, skinny tie. No shoes though.

When the ape climbed into the chair, lounging there, too cool for words, Harry knew he wanted a haircut to match his clothes. But Harry's regular customers were human, mostly: was a primate premium justified?

He opened with "Short all round, sir? Centre parting?"

"Mais non," drawled the chimp. "Ça ne se porte plus."

The Congo is francophone, Harry remembered. Gallic style, Gallic language.

"Je prends la coupe numéro cent."

"Excellent choice, sir. And on special offer today ..."


First Snow
by Mike Justman

Paul Avery, one of two graduate students in the University of Chicago’s prestigious art history department whose whereabouts could be confirmed, stayed inside the luxe three-story brick house on Cornell Drive longer than he’d planned. The former owners were likely dead in the basement, judging by the smell and the door nailed shut from both the outside and the inside. Paul tried for a moment to imagine the scenario that had led to that outcome, but then he noticed that the owners had been art collectors. He wandered through the house disdaining the second-rate Impressionists that predominated. One painting over one of the five bedroom fireplaces caught Paul’s eye. It turned out to be by Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, a Portuguese painter whose reputation might have grown to rival that of Picasso had he not died in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. Paul sat on an Empire chaise to admire the painting, pretending for a moment that he still lived in a world where it was not ridiculous to sit and admire paintings.

By the time he roused himself to search the house (in vain) for supplies and food, it was evening. The clouds that had been gathering over Lake Michigan had rolled over Hyde Park and were dumping the year’s first snow onto the deserted streets. He stepped out onto the porch and glanced around, wondering why this looked so different than previous first snowfalls.

​The street should have been suffused with an orange glow as the snowflakes caught the light from the sodium lamps, but a lot of things were not as they should be. “No streetlights,” he murmured. He smiled for a moment, and then pulled his backpack off to retrieve his flashlight from it. Three vaguely human forms lurched out of the shifting shadows and pulled him off the porch, tearing at his throat and eyes with their teeth and fingernails.

His fellow survivors learned a lesson from his death, but only after two more people died looking for him: it was safer to assume that anyone who failed to return from a foraging trip had in fact been devoured. They could of course be forgiven for assuming so; although it was impossible to confirm definitively that Paul had been eaten, there were witnesses to the deaths of the two putative rescuers. Not eyewitnesses, of course. Others were close enough to hear the screams, and the next day we could follow the blood and the tracks in the snow. But right then, the moonless night and thick snowfall made it impossible to see anything.

The weekend starts here with a decidedly creepy story by Meredith Morgenstern. All we can say is "Please lock your front door!"

Meredith Morgenstern is the maiden name and pen name of Meredith Lopez, who likes to pretend she wasn't born and raised in Miami, Florida. She spent 20 years living in New York City until fickle circumstance forced her to move to the New Jersey suburbs, where she writes horror about being forced to live in the suburbs. A second-generation geek, her short stories have been published in FICTION VORTEX, GOTHIC BLUE BOOKS IV, and HOLIDAY MAGICK. She lives with her husband, two children, and probably some ghosts.

You can find her on Twitter: @AuthorMeredith and at http://meredithmorgenstern.blogspot.com/


​I Forgot to Lock the Door
by Meredith Morgenstern

I forgot to lock the door, which shouldn't have mattered. After we'd seen the house but before we made an offer, we carefully researched the crime statistics and found nothing worse than a few tickets for loitering.

We moved from an apartment in the city, with a door that locked automatically for safety. A few weeks in the new house, and I still wasn't fully in the habit of locking the door behind me. I say "new" house, but it's at least ninety years old. The stairs creak, the heating pipes clank, and there is no central air conditioning.

We had to pay to get asbestos removed from the basement. But it's a nice house, in a safe little town, with excellent public schools.

I forgot to lock the door in part because the kids took forever to get their damn shoes on, and my 6-year old only wanted to wear his new red sneakers, which meant the 3-year old pulled off his sandals so he could wear his new red sneakers, too, then I had to remember to grab a bottle of water and I had to remember car keys because I'm not used to driving, and so after living in an apartment with a door that locked automatically,

I didn't lock the door as I herded noisy children out to the car and tried to remember, on top of all that, where we were going and what we had to do.

I forgot to lock the door and that shouldn't have mattered because I never see anyone on our new street. This town might be good for families, but it's not exactly the bustling city I called home for my entire adult life.

We have yet to meet any of the families that supposedly live around here. Sometimes during the day, when my husband is at work and the kids are playing in their room, I hear voices outside. When I look out a window there is no one there. It's quiet, safe, small town America as far as the eye can see. So it should really not have been that big of a deal. You could take a nap on our street for all the traffic we get. No one would pay us any attention unless they were directed to come here.

I forgot to lock the door. When we got home I pulled into the driveway and my oldest, the 6-year old, was in a hurry to get inside so he could go to the bathroom. I handed him my keys as I unbuckled his little brother from the car seat. My oldest ran up the front steps to our safe little house on our quiet street in our crime-free little town.

​I forgot to lock the door and I guess it matters, even out here, because when the little one and I finally made it up the steps to our unremarkable house and went inside, all that was left of my older boy were his new red sneakers and the vague sense that I could hear his voice but every time I looked, there was no one there.

We've a treat for you now: two new poems by Beth Cato. The first – So Old – is an interesting take on a Mad Max-style dystopia, while the second – The Border Cowboy at the Border – is something I've never seen before: a Western meets the Fae mashup. And it works! 

Nebula-nominated Beth Cato is the author of both the Blood of Earth trilogy and The Clockwork Dagger steampunk fantasy duology from Harper Voyager. Her website is http://BethCato.com


So Old
by Beth Cato

my grandma's so old
she remembers back when
people actually drove cars around
they didn't just sit here, rusting

she says people used 
to starve themselves to lose weight
how crazy is that?

and people had their trash
hauled away and expected to never
ever see it again
they certainly never dug through it
like we do
to find useful stuff

people were sure stupid back then
no wonder 
most of them died in the war


The Border Cowboy at the Border
by Beth Cato

some folks reckon you need an invite
to cross the border to Fairy Land
the cowboy knows that ain't so
either a human is kidnapped
dragged kicking and screaming
over that line
or they're a fool who deserves what they get

he considers the wall across the prairie
weathered stones stacked to his shoulder
a peculiar sight, where nary a rock is found
these stones don't look right, either
they darkly sparkle like they been rained on
though yellow grass crackles underfoot

a hole's been punched through the wall
like God laid down His mighty fist
shards about like they been dynamited 

the tracks of the cowboy's cattle herd
go straight through that gap
to the misty, accursed place on the far side
he had figured hill trolls did the thievin'
but this hole in the wall--it ain't like them
nothin' about this feels right

but what's a cowboy without his cows?

he sighs as he dismounts
to lead his skittish mare by the bit
she's smart enough to fight him
as they cross that shattered boundary

today, the cowboy's the fool